2.5m affected by floods: ICRC

PESHAWAR (Agencies) Fears were growing Monday for up to 2.5 million people affected by countrys worst floods in 80 years amid outbreaks of disease after monsoon rains killed more than 1,300 people. Unprecedented rains triggered floods and landslides, sweeping away thousands of homes and devastating farmland in one of countrys most impoverished regions, already hard hit by years of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked violence. Officials warn that a lack of drinking water is spreading diseases, including cholera, and say they are working to medivac people from affected areas such as Swat. The International Committee of the Red Cross announced that up to 2.5 million people across Pakistan have been affected by the heavy flooding. In the worst-affected areas, entire villages were washed away without warning by walls of flood water, it said in a statement, noting that thousands of people have lost everything. Syed Zahir Ali Shah, the health minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, estimated that about 100,000 people, mostly children, were suffering from illness such as gastroenteritis. A spokesman for the charity World Vision said teams had visited those affected around Peshawar, but that those further north had been inaccessible by road until Monday morning. They dont have drinking water or food. They said there have been some visible signs of water-borne diseases, Muhammad Ali told AFP, warning that the death toll was likely to rise further as aid workers reached more areas. At a camp set up by the army for around 640 families in Nowshera, women and children ran after vehicles bringing food and water, pushing and shouting. We are getting patients with trauma, gastroenteritis, skin diseases and dehydration, Doctor Shoaib Mohammad told AFP at a small 20-bed mobile clinic. Fifty-year-old Ajmair Shah went into shock after flood destroyed his home in Nowshera. He lay motionless in his hospital bed and staring into the air. My house was swept away by the flood, nothing is left there. I have lost everything, Shah said and started weeping. People at the camp said there were no proper latrines or bathrooms and that the only respite from the crushing heat was plastic hand fans. Most of them fled in the clothes they were wearing and many children roamed around naked. They throw food at us as if we are animals and not humans, Ilyas Khan, one angry man told AFP, complaining there was no proper system of distribution. Anwer Kazmi, a spokesman for Edhi Foundation, said at least 1,256 people had been killed and that Swat was the worst affected district with 475 deaths. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Amir Haider Hoti told reporters that the floods were unprecedented and warned it could take up to 10 days to assess the overall number of dead and displaced. KP government minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour put the death toll at 1,200. Meteorological office forecast rains of up to 200 millimetres in the next weeks across the northwest, Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, the central province of Punjab and Sindh in the south.